sky and sea
by Yati
Summary: A series of connected short fics, mostly focusing on Yuna and her aeons.
1. sky and sea

She asked me one question when I first stepped into the chamber, and her voice was both young and old and it was a memory of sky and sea. She asked me one question, and I had not known the answer at first. 

"Who are you?" she asked, and I stood there, frozen.

There was silence and it was heavy with one thousand years of quiet sorrow. I bowed my head, my hair hiding my eyes.

I told her my name was Yuna. Yuna, for that was the name my father had given me; the name that my mother had found sweet and a bit strange but one she had loved anyway. For a short second I thought I heard laughter, very much like a child's, genuine and blithe, but it was stilled before it managed to fly free.

"Yes. I know your name---I have known you for a long time." She was gentle, familiar. "You are called Yuna, the daughter of Braska. But who _are_ you?"

The snatches of the hymn were slipping from my mind. She had stopped singing it and I tried to grab hold, but it simply faded and disappeared. I did not have her grace or beauty to sing it on my own and I faltered, searching for the answer in the sudden silence. Her voice was the voice that I had heard since I was a child, more calming than the murmur of the wind and the waves, the echo that had been my companion in those long nights I had spent in the temple, absorbed in my studies.

Such a simple question, yet I knew not the answer then.

Who am I, I wondered? I am Yuna, I'm Braska's daughter. I'm an apprentice in Besaid. I am but another follower of Yevon, searching for atonement for our sins. I am a child who has had to watch too many die, I am a girl who has seen too few sunsets. I am the sea and I am the sky and I am the sand. I am Spira.

I am a summoner, I told her. A summoner, like my father before me.

"Yes." This time it was a sigh as the fayth relinquished her powers to me. Her voice rang with something akin to triumph as the hymn filled the empty chamber again. "Yes, my love, you are."


	2. perhaps, perhaps

Leaving Besaid wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Perhaps it was because I told myself that it would be an adventure; one grand, final adventure, the sweeping epic of good against evil. Maybe it was because I would finally be able to trace my father's footsteps along those far away shores and find him: find my father, the man who loved me and raised me and left me, and not Lord Braska, the High Summoner revered by all Spira. 

Perhaps meeting new people, new friends, made it all easier. Maybe their stories gave me hope. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tidus explaining something about blitzball strategy to the Aurochs, his hands flailing about, and he was all energy and laughter and life. He scratched the back of his head and trailed off when he noticed me watching. I smiled at him and he waved back at me, silly grin in place. Wakka thwacked him with a blitzball and I turned away, and the smile that I was trying to hide felt more real than the one I gave him.

I wondered if all these attachments would just make it harder in the end, but the end, as ominous at it sounded, seemed both so far away and very near. Perhaps I was being selfish, but I could not say no to what I could have in the present.

We were nearing Kilika when someone yelled "Sin!" at the top of his voice. It probably was Datto. Or perhaps it was Letty. Or maybe it was neither of them, just one of the ship's hands. It didn't matter; it wasn't important. The boat was tilting and I was sliding towards the starboard and Tidus was gripping my hand, looking as surprised (and maybe as scared) as I felt. His grip slipped, and before I could even properly comprehend I was falling, I was in Kimahri's gentle arms.

Valefor fluttered, uneasy at Sin's approach. She didn't seem afraid---why should she be? Surely she had been summoned many, many times before in the face of Sin?---but her anger was palpable. "It is the destroyer," she murmured and there was sadness from her too, and I didn't understand why. "It has arisen again."

I didn't question her---I called her to me and she flew through the sky, all majesty and beauty and grace. Her attacks were relentless but in the end it still wasn't enough.

Our efforts didn't matter. Sin headed away and there was nothing we could do. I sat on the deck, Tidus's head in my lap (he had been thrown into the water and was only half-conscious when Wakka had dragged him back up), and he was staring in a daze at the red sky. He looked confused and tired and all out of hope, and I wondered if he was thinking of his Zanarkand and the blitzball stadium all lit up all night.

What a wonderful place it would be, that Zanarkand. Perhaps, one day . . . .

Valefor's sigh sounded like wind rustling through the grass, and it made me think of a thousand years of sorrow.


	3. not that simple

It was strange, really. Kilika had been torn down to the sea; driftwood everywhere, bodies in their caskets floating in the water, cradled by the waves. The sun skimmed the horizon, splashing everything in gold and red. It was peaceful. It was horrifying. The waves sounded no different as they lapped at the fallen pier in Kilika: gentle as always, promising to go on for eternity.

"No such thing as eternity, love," Valefor murmured. I did not understand.

I did the only things I knew how to do: I danced and danced and danced and sent the fallen souls to the sky.

Valefor sighed, almost in yearning. I did not understand. 


	4. river of souls

Pyreflies and moonlilies. Such a curious relationship. 

They were not insects, to be attracted by the sweet nectar. They were not sentient, to want to drench the Moonflow in such beauty. They were not even alive. 

I wondered why some of the pyreflies turned into fiends while some lingered among the lilies. I wondered why some of the dead resented the living, while the others simply left, ascending to the Farplane. If I died _(when I died)_ and no one sent me, would I become a fiend? 

I was ready to die. I was not certain that I wanted to. 


End file.
